Four Poems by Adriana Stimola
The Night Buoy
The thing
about the ring
of the night buoy
is that it reminds me
that I’m also floating,
a bobbing mouth, crying out —
I’m here. The wind
is blowing. (The wind
is not blowing. Talk to me.) —
on a sea of unseen things (all teeth,
and tentacles and rooms
made of ribs) that circle
and one day
will swallow me whole
but only after
it feeds me
and calls me by
my night name.
◆ ◆ ◆
On Saturdays
Sometimes sun or sound will sweep me
into loop of Saturdays:
asking Dad about “Bloody Sunday”
in the car, on the way to Sears
where I’d stare at all the bras and hope
he wouldn’t see. There’s a war
where Grandma was born. I wonder
if that’s that why she didn’t have much
to say. She did have M&Ms and cigarettes
and what seemed no expectation
of the kind of kid I’d be. I didn’t know
that silence was the fence
that kept her kids corralled
and looking for the trough;
I’m putting money in the meter
as we go see Mike the Barber
where I learn that there’s a secret rip
in time that shows forever — fans
of arms that taste like pineapple Dumdums.
It’s a trick of bouncing light, Babe.
Even that feels made for me;
the brass bar to pull the drawer
on his bedside table rattles
every time he lets it go. He let me
finger through buttons, rub that braided
silver cuff he’d wear and all the plastic arrows
he saved from his Teaching collars
and sounded like rain.
I notice my today’s head tilting,
chin up to welcome the fall
of invisible lace and lollipop wrappers,
hairspray for men and those pointed shirt things —
what are they called…
Stays? — from the other side of the mirror.
◆ ◆ ◆
Grapefruit
They were a pile of suns on the Saturday table,
in the light of the window where the birds came
for their breakfast too. I would watch my Grandmother open
each one, the star of their insides out for us,
held with ringed fingers, fingers wet
from wiping counters and cheeks,
some with velvet blue-veins,
some sticky, pink porcelain —
a home in every hand.
With sharpened spoons, we traced the edges
lifted pyramid by pyramid, to our mouths,
separated every ruby and swallowed —
pharaohs for the morning.
I wasn’t surprised to see them gracing
the cover of 1927 Vogue, hung on the silver wallpaper,
still in the arms of our Grandmother, forever,
with a view of the sea and the jetty
we learned to run, shoeless,
after the patent leather came off.
◆ ◆ ◆
On The Lawn
It’s the first time I’m
painting Katherine and trying
to follow the rules. I want to make
that cluster of freckles first, but
if I start there, I’ll end up subcutaneous,
blood-water rafting on the way to her
should-have-been-a-dancer-
but-have-no-rhythm feet.
I could start with the blue blanket
I forgot I bought when I was sick,
but then I’m warp-hung in fibers,
jumping shuttles back to Peru.
Or the tree where we first saw the cardinals
climbing over her summer shoulder, or
the sweating sun dogs halo-barking for me
to start here, and I keep drawing back
the curtains, the curtains,
the curtains.
/ / / / /
Four Poems by Warren Woessner
Two Ravens
That day the bird life was routine
in the muddy pond where I was hoping
to find something rare: just two families
of geese feeding along the shore
and an angry Killdeer, fed up with my trespass.
Then two huge black birds came into range.
Ravens, all head and beak, looking like drones from hell.
My first thought, one was chasing the other,
defending territory or fighting over a food find.
But just as the chaser was about to strike,
the target rolled over onto its back and they locked talons,
and tumbled toward the earth. At the last moment
they disengaged, croaked and were gone over the dunes.
I stayed frozen, then began to unpack a poem of dark similes —
full of witches cackling curses and riding black brooms,
Then it hit me — this had been a pair bonding,
or maybe just play, a word we have almost banished.
I got the message – summertime living can be easy
if you are a bird as big as an eagle, will eat anything,
and have miles of protected land to explore.
Wait a minute, that’s me, standing in the mud
and poison ivy, applauding inside,
hoping for a second act or better yet,
more playtime for us all.
◆ ◆ ◆
Fireflies
The dog spins and jumps trying to catch one,
like a cat chasing a laser pointer dot.
The dog is always a little late —
the light goes out, the dog bites air
and the beetle flies just out of that harm’s way.
We kids learned to wait them out
until one got so close that we could grab it
with cupped hands so gently
that it kept on lighting.
We’d store a dozen or so for a while
in a Mason jar with holes punched
in a wax paper lid, until we got bored
and poured them back to perforate
the dark woods with their cold fire.
◆ ◆ ◆
Hotel Avis
I am looking out the window
at the ten birdhouses you hung
in a sort of spiral pattern
on the side of the garage.
“Folk art”, our friends tell us
but I wanted more
than a conversation-starter.
I wanted to provide
below-market housing
to my neighbors.
But two springs have passed
and no one has moved in.
A wren couple even hurt my feelings
by nesting on a porch light fixture.
If you know, tell me why this high rise
is empty when there is no rent,
the roofs don’t leak,
and every door is open to the sky.
◆ ◆ ◆
Tight Lines
for Flip Harrington
I wish the phone would ring
and it would be you
saying I got bait today,
it’s not too sloppy,
let’s leave the dock at 5 AM
and go over to the Elizabeths
to that spot we found last week
where we caught our limit
in an hour. Then you teased Buddy
on the radio until he left Nomans
and came over to help his fancy clients
reel in some Stripers.
I wish you’d say to invite Sol and Bob—
better fishermen than I’ll ever be—
to go with us.
I wish I’d be able to board your boat
from the bow, remembering to always
hold onto metal, and get into my favorite
first mate’s seat, despite my so-so eyesight
and unsteady feet. I wish I could
set my binoculars on the dashboard
with the strap wrapped around my water bottle
like that spot would be mine forever.
I wish I’d remember to bring a cooler
to chill the filets you cut for us
back on the dock. I wish I could loan you
the book about the Pilar
and tease you about thinking
you are Hemingway’s ghost.
I wish you weren’t a ghost.
/ / / / /
Three Poems by Ellen Martin Story
Sense and Sensitivity
One by one they slip into my front yard –
a fawn: pale, patchy, legs so slender, followed
by its young mother who hangs back behind bush
her non-perceptible communication guides
her baby forward towards a small rhododendron.
The fawn raises its ears to pointed triangles
eyes open wide to overcome size of its face
as it stares ahead until reminded by hunger
bends to nip a leaf.
A mere moment passes – baby
stops nibbling looks back and mother
appears like a cloud stands statuesque
many deer-hooves behind her fragile
young who turns, tip-hoofs
back to mama, raises its little jaw
as high as possible to nudge her gently
under her chin. I lower my head to nibble on
childhood memories – my parents were like deer:
a slight change of an eyebrow,
clenched lips eyeball roll forehead lift
spoke that moment’s lesson.
When I look back up, mother and child are no more.
◆ ◆ ◆
What Say You, Breath?
It’s easy to be heavy: hard to be light
— from Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
didn’t do what
I wanted
did what
wanted me — those deep breaths
embraced me in Chesterton’s
virtues of “being light”
until light-headed, hunger heavy for
a grilled cheese, tomato, bacon
and the familiar feeling
of being like old vinyl with needle grooved in a scratch
succumbed to gravity’s gravitas
◆ ◆ ◆
A Plantation’s Reckonings
— Middleton Place, South Carolina
The owners * the Enslaved
barons — six generations * 3,000
portraits * slave badges
heirloom silver, porcelain * manservant wool livery
original furniture, jewelry *
wedding gown *
* in bricks
* slave fingerprints
*
* re-built
* slave cabin
* several hundred slave
* names, ages, value listed
* home of
* descendant, Eliza, a cook
* until 1986
*
1,000-year-old
Live Oak
Spanish moss
quietly southern
massages gently
amputated limbs
spirits
touch stroke bark feel a settling a knowing
a moment long tortuous
stay strong saga of my race
surviving
for now
no shadows